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Gala Opening Concert 2005-2006 Season
The Charlotte Civic Orchestra’s Gala Opening Concert of the 2005-2006 Season
will be held at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 2, at the First United Methodist
Church in downtown Charlotte. The concert is sponsored by a grant from the
Foundation for the Carolinas and will feature the work of contemporary Mexican
composer, Arturo Rodriguez. Also appearing on the program will be the
Carolinas Latin Dance Company in a performance of Mexican folk dances.
Featured Work
Mosaico Mexicano
Arturo Rodgriguez, Composer
Born in Monterey, Mexico and the youngest recipient of Mexico’s Mozart Medal
(1996), Arturo Rodriguez is regarded as on of his country’s most promising
young musicians. He made his debut as a piano soloist in May 1998 with the
Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and since then has focused his career on
composition and conducting.
His professional debut as a composer was in May 2000, when the Dallas
Symphony Orchestra performed his first orchestral work, Mosaico Mexicana,
which will be the featured work on the Charlotte Civic Orchestra’s October 2
concert. That same year he made his conducting debut, touring with the Texas
Christian University Symphony Orchestra to Mexico.
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Mosaico Mexicano (1998), a Mexican overture for large orchestra, and is
perhaps the composer’s most popular work to date.
The overture is a compendium of sections that draw on three principal styles and
tempos. The first, marked Tempo di Huapango, is brisk, foot-tapping mariachi
music. The second introduces a theme in the style of indigenous Mexican Indian
music, introduced first by E-flat clarinet and repeated three times, each time with
expanded orchestration. The third distinct section slows the pace to a more
intimate serenata. A string quartet passage opens the section, with pizzicato
imitating the oversize guitar that would be used in a Mexican serenata. The
violins take the roles of two singers. Rodriguez uses all three of his principal
themes for the exuberant conclusion to his overture, neatly tying them together
with a fourth tune that he hints at earlier.
To play an MP3 audio file of Mosaico Mexicano, click on the link below:
http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/show_score.pl?scoreid=23080#details
The Carolinas Latin Dance Company will appear as special guest performers
on the CCO’s opening concert. The Carolinas Latin Dance Company is a non
profit organization whose mission is to provide quality cultural education through
the highest level of musical dance instruction, and to provide the community with
new values and beliefs of Latin American ethnicity traditions and costumes. The
company serves youngsters 10 years old and up from all religious, ethnic cultural
and economic backgrounds. The company will be performing a group of dances
from the folk traditions of Mexico.
Charlotte Civic Orchestra
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Education & Outreach
Resources for Teachers
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elda@charlottecivicorchestra.org
To learn more about Mexican folk dance traditions, follow the link below:
http://www.geocities.com/hispanicfolkballet/dances.html
Mexican Mariachi Music and Instruments
The term mariachi originally referred to a social event involving dancers who
performed on a wooden platform, similar to the Spanish fandango. Today
mariachi refers to a kind of music as well as the ensemble that plays it.
The mariachi ensemble and mariachi music originated in the Jalisco region and
surrounding states of western Mexico, especially the city of Guadalajara. A
traditional mariachi included primarily string instruments, such as guitars; a large
bass guitar called a guitarrón; a folk harp with 28–40 strings; violins; a flatbacked, five-string guitar; and vihuelas (guitars with round backs). In the
Zacatecas and Los Altos regions of Mexico, a bass drum or snare drum was
sometimes added to the group. Before cars, mariachi bands traveled from town
to town by walking or by train, mule, or horse.
Since the 1930s, the mariachi band has been the most nationally prominent folkderived Mexican music ensemble. During the 1930s, trumpets were added to
mariachi orchestras. This was a time of high patriotic feelings in Mexico, following
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the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Mexicans from the countryside began to move
to urban centers such as Mexico City. The power and high pitch of the mariachi
trumpet could be heard in radio broadcasts and in Mexican films, which often
featured performances by Silvestre Vargas and his Mariachi Vargas de
Tecalitán—one of the pioneers of the modern mariachi ensemble. Today a
mariachi ensemble includes two groups of instruments. The melody group
includes violins and trumpets, and the harmony group includes vihuela, guitar,
guitarrón, and sometimes harp.
Traditional mariachi ensembles played sones—melodies and dances rooted in
folk traditions—that were associated with the various regions of Mexico. "La
Bamba" and "Cielito Lindo" are examples of sones that are often played and
sung by mariachi groups. Today mariachi ensembles may play these traditional
songs as well as other kinds of music, including popular music from urban
centers of Mexico and other countries. While there are mariachi songs that are
performed in the traditional style in masses celebrating the feast of the Virgin of
Guadalupe, most mariachi music is secular. Popular themes include life events
and unrequited love as well as dance music. The music is often fast and
vigorous, with strong rhythms. Melodies are often sung in thirds in a high vocal
range.
Today you might hear a mariachi band at public celebrations, parties, or dances,
and in restaurants, nightclubs, movies, and even schools. Mariachi festivals are
now popular in the western and southwestern United States. The first large-scale
mariachi festival in the United States occurred in San Antonio in 1979.
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